(FinancialPress) — TD AmeriTrade CEO, Tim Hockey, gave his insights on the current landscape of North American finance, young investors and the new booming markets that are the cryptocurrency one and the burgeoning legal cannabis sector.

Now the largest demographic in the economy, millennials are the rallying force behind the transformation of the stock trading and asset management world. As per Hockey, investment accounts opened by millenials (young investors of up to 35 years of age) grew 72% YoY.

After releasing TD America‘s earnings report, – which handily beat Wall Street Expectations with $1.2 billion in results — the lead man gave the following insight in the surge that they have experienced in ETFs, cannabis stocks and cryptocurrencies.

On millennials heading to TD AmeriTrade to delve into new-age investing:

“The way I would describe our distribution strategy is high-tech and light-touch. We have the best trading and education platforms in the industry, in my view. And what do younger clients need? They love technology, and we’ve got the platforms that are the best out there. And they’re in need of education, to make sure they are educated investors. They’re younger in their investing and trading careers so as a result we’ve got that combination for them.

It seems to be working because our new accounts opened by millennials are up 72% year-over-year, and that’s driven by both our offerings as well as what’s of interest in the marketplace right now. Clearly, the two biggest stories of the quarter were the sectors of cryptocurrency and cannabis. Those are two sectors that didn’t even exist a few years ago. That has driven the skewing of our new accounts opened to the younger trader and younger investor.“

On the cryptocurrency market, its maturity and blockchain:

“This market is certainly not mature. I would say that what we saw in terms of levels of absolute interest prior to the holiday season seemed to peak. Everybody was talking about crypto of all types all the time because it seemed like it was a one-way increase.

Ever since the pricing has been normalized and there’s been a bit of a correction, then you’ve seen a little bit less froth, if you will, in the market. We’ve actually seen that in the first few weeks of January, crypto trades — not just the Cboe product, but companies that are related to blockchain — have contributed a couple of points less toward our trading activity. It seems to have peaked just before the holidays.

The technology certainly has not matured, and I believe the transformative nature of what blockchain can do is only just starting to be understood by the majority of the world….

There’s a distinction between blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but they are absolutely being conflated in many people’s minds. They don’t quite understand blockchain but they’re being told that it is transformative. What comes with that is cryptocurrencies, and they don’t quite understand the linkage between the two and what the differences are between the various ones. “